


they say our love won't pay the rent

by mariuscourf



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Enjolras/Grantaire, Grantaire & Marius Friendship, M/M, and they were ROOMMATES, background eponine/cosette - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28364499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariuscourf/pseuds/mariuscourf
Summary: Is it homophobic to not want your roommate to kiss other boys?
Relationships: Courfeyrac/Marius Pontmercy
Comments: 12
Kudos: 28





	they say our love won't pay the rent

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [that one Reddit post](https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/straight-guy-worries-hes-homophobic-gay-roommate-ends-falling-love/#gs.dIoXkqw), because it was so Marius Pontmercy I almost cried.

Courfeyrac kissed boys.

All kinds. As Lizzo would put it: he kissed big boys, itty bitty boys, Mississippi boys, and inner city boys. He was both a playboy and a gay boy, and seriously, how did Marius know every lyric off of that album? (Well, Courfeyrac blasting it and singing along at the top of his lungs in the shower, every morning at eight on the dot. One time, Marius was sure he could hear Courfeyrac singing Lizzo in his sleep, because sleep-talking wasn’t enough for Courfeyrac, of course he had to go to _sleep-singing_.)

Marius did not kiss boys.

He kissed Cosette Fauchelevent, once upon a time. All of freshman and sophomore year, they dated, and sure, they rarely had sex, but Marius could talk to Cosette about anything and well, his left hand was always there for him. (Except for the ill-fated week he watched too much television with Grantaire, which spawned a Seinfeld-esque masturbation contest, because the limits of how far Grantaire, Courfeyrac, and Bahorel would go for a bit did not exist.) _“Dude, you’re twenty, you should be fucking like rabbits; lesbian bed death only applies to lesbians, just like. Show up there and start stripping sometime? Hey, don’t give me that look, Cosmo suggested it!”_ Courfeyrac had said. And he was right, in a way: lesbian bed death did only apply to lesbians, because Cosette came out to him during spring semester finals.

They still talked, all of the time. Cosette was still second on his speed dial, and they met for coffee and scones every Sunday. Heck, he was still closer with Cosette’s dad than his own grandfather, even though Jean Valjean had seemed greatly relieved when they broke up. (Marius tried not to take it personally. He failed.)

So here Marius was, sitting at his apartment’s tiny kitchen table on Saturday night, trying to translate some German passage. Fifteen feet away in his bedroom, Courfeyrac was kissing a boy. Courfeyrac was kissing a boy while Marius was studying, and that just didn’t sit right with him.

Screw it, he could have fun too. One text and twenty minutes later, Grantaire was lying on his couch, a six-pack in hand. And Marius didn’t really drink beer, not since Courfeyrac had introduced him to the wonders of fruity blended drinks, but Courfeyrac was still in his bedroom kissing a boy. “Can I have one?” Marius asked.

“No, I brought beer over to your apartment to drink it all myself,” Grantaire deadpanned, pulling up Netflix on the ancient TV Courfeyrac had scored off of Craigslist. “Pick your poison.”

“Emily in Paris?”

Grantaire snorted, but pulled it up anyway. After two and a half episodes ( _“Marius, please tell me we’re only watching this ironically” “I, um…” “Jesus fucking Christ, Pontmercy”_ ), Courfeyrac emerged from his bedroom wearing only a knee-length skirt.

“You shouldn’t wear that,” Marius blurted out.

Courfeyrac gave him a weird look. “I mean I know my calves are lethal, but what the hell?”

“Last skirt he saw was C-O-S–E-T-T-E,” Grantaire fake-whispered.

“That was months ago,” Courfeyrac rolled his eyes and moved to fill up a water bottle. “Fuck gender norms,” he winked. “Now if you don’t mind, I gotta get back to my gentleman friend.”

“Dude, what the fuck?” Grantaire asked as soon as the sounds of Carly Rae Jepson blaring from Courfeyrac’s room resumed. “I know you have three copies of Harry Styles’s Vogue issue lying around this apartment, and Courfeyrac only bought two of those.”

Marius downed the last of his beer. “Cosette had a skirt like that.” That must be why he was feeling weird, right?

“It’s been months, are you still not over her?”

“I’m over her,” Marius sighed.

“Then sounds like it’s time to get under someone else,” Grantaire smirked.

Maybe Marius needed some new friends.

“You know, a mere three weeks ago, I was in your position,” Grantaire started, and Marius braced himself for another soliloquy about Enjolras’s perfect skin and hair and ideals and principals and he couldn’t even say anything, because that used to be him, endlessly pining with Grantaire. Drinking too much wine and shouting from the rooftops about undying love. Only now, Grantaire wasn’t pining. Grantaire, who couldn’t give less of a shit about romance, had his own fairy-tale, grand romantic gestures and all. (How was Enjolras finding the time for grand-R romantic gestures when he couldn’t text Marius back about the political science reading, anyway?)

“…and his tongue, Marius. His _tongue_ ,” Grantaire sighed, and Marius was suddenly very, _very_ glad he had spaced out from Grantaire’s monologue. “We’re going out tonight.”

“You and Enjolras?”

Grantaire shook his head. “You and me. And also Enjolras, because it’s been about four hours since I’ve seen him last, and before you say that’s codependent, think about how I’ve somehow managed to go an entire four hours without seeing his perfect–”

Marius covered his head with a pillow.

  
  


Apparently when Grantaire said he was taking Marius out, he meant that _everyone_ was going out, and him and Enjolras would disappear after about two minutes of standing around in a club.

And Courfeyrac was still wearing that damned skirt. Why did it make Marius feel so weird? Courfeyrac was his friend, the sight of his bare legs shouldn’t make Marius feel anything. He had immediately beelined to the dance floor and was twirling Jehan around to King Princess, calves spinning around in a flow of black fabric.

With his friends off having fun, Marius went over to the bar to pick up some drinks for him and well, he may as well get one for Courfeyrac too. “Two vodka sodas,” he told the bartender, because even though he’s not huge on vodka or soda water, it’s Courf’s go-to drink and the less he has to say to someone he doesn’t know, the better.

“Roomie!” Courfeyrac shouted from across the room and danced over to Marius. “Dance with me.”

“I, err, our drinks,” Marius stammered. Courfeyrac grabbed the plastic cups– good thing Enjolras was otherwise preoccupied; he would have way too many thoughts on single-use plastic– downed his in one gulp, stacked Marius’s drink in his empty cup, and used his free hand to pull Marius out to dance.

Marius grabbed his drink back, because if he was going to dance with a boy in public he wanted at least some vodka in his system, and Jesus, how did Courfeyrac drink his so fast– why did anyone drink vodka, this was disgusting– still, he choked it down and let Courfeyrac twirl him around.

“Never seen you dance before!” Courfeyrac shouted over the music.

“I, um, don’t dance much,” Marius said. He never danced with Cosette, at least.

Last weekend, Cosette had chaperoned a middle school dance with her new girlfriend, which really raised more questions than anything– because really, what was she doing chaperoning a middle school dance? What kind of middle school lets college kids chaperone dances– have they met college kids? Sure, Marius’s only plans for the night were to mope around his apartment, but his most responsible friend was currently hooking up with a disaffected stoner in a bathroom stall.

The point is, Cosette was doing great. Cosette was dancing, and maybe Marius could too.

He threw back the rest of his drink and took Courfeyrac’s hand.

  
  


Marius awoke with a headache. 

“C’mon, Pontmercy.” Courfeyrac was looming over him, bottle of Gatorade in hand. No skirt this time, but any sort of top was absent, and Marius was used to his roommate walking around in just a pair of ratty sweatpants, but it was too early in the morning for this. “Rise and shine, babe.” Marius’s mouth was fuzzy. Why was his mouth fuzzy? Marius grabbed the Gatorade from Courfeyrac and managed to get a sip down. “You okay?”

“I’m okay,” Marius said.

“I made you an apology breakfast! Or I got apology takeout from Waffle House; did you know that Waffle House even does takeout?” Marius did know that, from the semester Bahorel worked there, before he was fired for punching some patrons. Which made sense to Marius, but baffled everyone else because, _“it’s Waffle House, they ask you if you can fight during the job interview, come on.”_

“Ye– apology breakfast?”

Courfeyrac sighed, his ever-present grin starting to fade. “I’m sorry for flirting with you too much last night; I promise that next time I will respect your boundaries.” It was like he was reading off of an Enjolras-prepared speech, which to be fair, he probably was.

“You what?”

“Oh, I wasn’t flirting with you too much?” The grin was back.

Truthfully, Marius did not remember.

“You ran away from me pretty quickly,” Courf added. “So, uh. I’m just making sure we’re good.”

Courfeyrac apologizing for flirting was like the sun apologizing for being a star, and Marius would be able to appreciate it more if he weren’t so damn confused.

“We’re good,” Marius said. Even though his palms were sweating. Even though there was something weird about Courfeyrac sitting on his bed. He could just go and eat his smothered, covered hash browns and pretend that there was nothing wrong at all.

Only something was wrong– there was some mystery man in their kitchen, eating Marius’s food, which wouldn’t be much of an issue normally, Marius would just share with Courfeyrac, but Courf always got jalapeños in his hash browns and there was no way Marius could handle that.

“Morning,” the mystery man looked up from the table.

Marius could barely handle Courfeyrac in a skirt. He managed to dance with Courfeyrac, even if just barely. But with Courfeyrac’s latest hookup eating his breakfast– the breakfast that Courf had specifically gotten him– Marius felt like he was going to be sick. 

  
  


“How did you know you were gay?” Marius asked later that day, and Cosette nearly spit out her earl grey.

“It wasn’t you!” Cosette insisted. (She had said this many, _many_ times. To the point where Marius felt bad about it.) “I still love you, you know. Just, um, not like that.” She took another sip of tea, without choking on it this time.

“How do you know if you’re homophobic?” Marius pondered. 

“The same way you know if you hate any group of people, I think.” Cosette said, completely unfazed.

“Hmm.” Marius didn’t hate gay people. Heck, most of his friends were gay or bi. He might hate Courfeyrac’s hash-brown-eating hookup, though.

“Do you want to come over for dinner tonight?” Cosette asked. “Papa’s cooking.” And since eating a home-cooked meal with some of his favorite people sounded a thousand times better than sitting on the couch next to Courfeyrac, eating a frozen pizza and working through whatever feelings he was having, Marius followed Cosette to her house.

“I’m home!” Cosette shouted as she walked in, Marius trailing tentatively behind her. “Marius is here too!”

A man who wasn’t Jean Valjean stared Marius down.

“Inspector,” Cosette nodded in greeting.

“Cosette.”

Marius had about a thousand follow-up questions, but before he could even figure out how to phrase them, Valjean ushered everyone around the kitchen table.

He had been to Cosette’s house many times before, but during all of those instances, was entirely too focused on Cosette to notice anything about his surroundings. Now, he could see a fire going on the side of the room, a pair of silver candlesticks on the mantle in between photos of Cosette as a child, photos of Cosette as an awkward teenager, and photos of Cosette now. (One of the photos was the same as the one Marius carried around in his wallet for a year and a half, which made him turn a bit red, because he really did that, didn’t he?) It was all so homey he could cry; Marius hasn’t done a family dinner since high school, uncomfortably sitting across a table from his grandfather and his aunt. He always felt awkward and out of place during those, though.

Valjean and the other man– Javert, their neighbor; Marius had no idea how he fit into this situation at all– kept bantering back and forth, Cosette teasing her dad about something or other. Honestly, it reminded him of dinners with Courfeyrac.

“How have you been, Marius?” Valjean asked. “We’ve missed you around here,” he added after a Cosette sent him a look.

“He has a new job!” Cosette bragged, as if translating biology papers for Combeferre in exchange for museum passes counted as a new job. (Not even papers Combeferre needed for school, just ones he thought were cool. It baffled Marius to no end.)

“Exactly who are you, young sir?” Javert glared at Marius. _Young sir_? Who was this man?

“Cosette’s former young gentleman caller,” Valjean smirked.

“Gentleman caller-turned-best friend,” Cosette clarified. Javert continued looking at Marius disapprovingly. “You should’ve seen when he met Eponine, he was more overprotective than Papa,” she whispered.

“I have stared the horrors of humanity in the face,” Javert started. Valjean scoffed, clearly used to hearing this spiel before.

Cosette was great, her dad was great, and Javert – whoever he was– well, wasn’t great exactly, because Marius was still confused as to who he was and what he was doing there. But maybe Marius would have had a better time splitting a frozen pizza with Courfeyrac after all.

  
  


“Hey, can we talk?” Courfeyrac barged into the apartment– after what was was a short night out, Marius thought, honestly surprised Courf came home alone at all. He was curled up on the couch, getting caught up on the political science reading (because Enjolras _still_ hadn’t texted him back about it, seriously what was going on there) and sorta-kinda-maybe avoiding Courfeyrac. Because he was having a hard time seeing Courf’s face without thinking of it attached to some other boy. Which might be homophobic; he would have to talk to Cosette again. And maybe Cosette's neighbor, who seemed to have a lot of strong feelings and could weigh in on this.

“Hmm?” Marius looked up from his textbook.

“Okay, so like Combeferre said it was ridiculous because literally all your friends are queer, but all of your friends are not having gay sex in your apartment, so, um.”

Why was Courfeyrac stammering?

“Do you need the apartment for a date tonight?” Marius asked, praying the answer was no.

“No, I just– Marius, do you have an issue with me being gay? ‘Cause like, I’m really hoping you don’t, because otherwise I would owe Enjolras twenty bucks, and also I would just be sad.”

“I don’t have an issue with you being gay,” Marius said. That part was true, at least.

“You just have an issue with me being gay in front of you.”

“I– err, maybe?”

Courfeyrac sighed, and sunk onto the couch next to Marius. “Can I kiss you?”

Marius sat up, startled. “Um, where?”

“The couch that we’re both sitting on, probably– _oh_ , um, your mouth, and if you say no we can pretend this never happened, or you can say yes, and then we can still pretend this never happened.”

This wasn’t Courf joking and being flirty, this was Courf being scary serious, and Marius was terrified.

“O– okay,” Marius said, turning towards Courfeyrac– should he close his eyes, should he brace for stubble, should he– and before he knew it his roommate’s lips were on his, soft and sweet and tentative and _wow_. Courf’s lips were gone just as quickly, and Marius might have let out a whimper, he wasn’t really sure of anything anymore.

“Are you okay?”

Marius nodded.

“Think you know why you might not like me kissing other boys?” Courfeyrac smirked. Marius nodded again.

Courf pulled him into a hug, kissed his forehead, and Marius thought he was going to physically melt into the couch.

They didn’t leave their apartment all weekend, which was probably the longest Courfeyrac had gone without going out. Watching period dramas, cuddling under a blanket Cosette had hand-knit for Valentine’s day one year– there was some irony there, definitely; maybe Marius would have to learn to knit himself to make a blanket for Cosette and Eponine to hide under while they watched Colin Firth emerge from the lake outside of Pemberley– that had always been Marius’s favorite part of Pride and Prejudice, and seriously, how did he not realize this sooner? If he had leaned into swooning over Mr Darcy just a little more, could he have been kissing Courfeyrac months ago?

“We’re taking it slow,” Marius told Grantaire over the phone.

“Sure you are,” Grantaire laughed.

“Is that Marius?” Enjolras said in the background, followed by the clattering of Enjolras grabbing the phone. “Marius?”

“Y–yes?”

“I’m only saying this once: if you hurt my best friend, I will fucking destroy you.” Enjolras paused. “As if I need another reason–”

“You’re scaring him!” Grantaire shouted, his voice muffled and static-y.

“ _Good_.”

“Don’t worry, Courfeyrac gave me the same speech last month,” Grantaire explained. “So does this mean we can go on double dates now, or…”

Marius smiled, and glanced over at Courfeyrac, dancing around the kitchen to Sonny & Cher as he cooked dinner (or at least something vaguely edible that could pass as food for college kids, because neither Marius nor Courfeyrac could cook much at all). “I think so.”

“Babe!” Courf called out. “C’mon, I only got a _little_ eggshell in the instant ramen this time–”

“I have to go,” Marius said into the phone.

“Have fun with your _instant ramen_ ,” Grantaire laughed. Marius could almost hear the air quotes, and seriously, what was Grantaire even trying to imply there?

“R again?” Courfeyrac asked.

“Yup,” Marius said, wrapping his arms around Courf’s waist as he tried to fish eggshells out of the pot, accidentally crashing his nose into Courf’s shoulder and causing Courfeyrac to splash boiling water everywhere, including over Courfeyrac’s arms. “Shoot, do you need, um, band-aids, or cold water, or–”

Courfeyrac turned around and kissed him.

It turned out Marius didn’t have any problems with Courfeyrac kissing guys if it was him Courf was kissing.

**Author's Note:**

> So I have absolutely no idea why Cosette calls Javert "Inspector" in this, but I really love the idea of Cosette and Javert having inside jokes (well, Cosette thinks they're inside jokes, Javert thinks they're minor annoyances).
> 
> Title from I Got You Babe by Sonny & Cher, because I listened mostly to '60s love songs whilst writing, which: 10/10 would recommend, '60s love songs all have Marius vibes.
> 
> Seinfeld reference entirely just for me, but think about [that episode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Contest) and then think about Courf, Grantaire, and Bahorel, and tell me I'm wrong.
> 
> Comments/kudos/etc always appreciated. x


End file.
